My Sample Library & Plugin Choices

For welcome back to my channel where I aspire to cause a scene every single time. People out there hating on me for no reason. I can give you a [ __ ] reason.

Trying out new lighting again, um, cuz some people gave me tips in the comment section last time on the last video. So now I moved the soft box to that side and a fill light to this side, and then we have the back light. Like three-point lighting, we're almost professional. We're not professionals. Is this better? I don't know.

Anyway, I'm tired of figuring this out by myself, so I'm making this everyone's problem now. This is a group project going forward. Me figuring out lighting and camera settings and color correction and all this stuff. We're making this a group activity now.

Anyway, um, a lot of people keep asking me if I was starting out again, what products would I buy, what sample libraries would I buy because they watch my old videos. And of course, there's a lot of old products in my older videos that I'm using. If you look at my first template videos, I think they're now like five years old, maybe six years. Things have changed quite a bit. So I figured since so many people are dming me about this, I'm going to make a video. If I had to start out again and I had equipment, what would I buy now?

The first warning I have to give, if you recall, I, there was a time when I endorsed Monogram CC. And I've been using it and I love it and it's a great product. But it appears that they have not been shipping products for like a really long time now. I don't know what's going on. I don't know if they ran out of capital, if they're going to go through bankruptcy, or whatever the deal is there. I've ordered something over a year ago and have not received the product. So be really careful. Which is a shame because it's really a good product and it seemed like a great company. But you know, they, they keep saying supply chain issues and stuff. I, I, I don't know. But this problem has been going on now for over a year, at least. So I can no longer endorse them unless these problems are solved. Because if you look anywhere online, you can see that apparently a lot of people have not gotten their products even though they paid for it. Until they figure that out, maybe steer clear of Monogram CC.

Now getting into sample libraries. Now, first of all, if you don't have anything yet and your funds are limited, you can start out with subscriptions. There's nothing wrong with that. It might actually be good just to learn the thing and to figure out if, if you like certain products or what you like about certain products, what you dislike. So that later on, when you fully buy things, you can make more informed decisions. But so this is literally the only time I would support subscriptions. Personally, I think the East West subscription is your biggest bang for your buck. Maybe that's also a bit of nostalgia because I started with East West products. It's a great arsenal of products they have and it's a great temporary affordable solution for what you need. That way you can work and you can study and you can learn and practice while you're basically saving up for the real deal.

Now, there's two things that I've learned over the years that might help you along the way. Now, the first thing is, you do save money in the long term if you invest in the high-quality stuff right away. Even if that means you have to save a little longer, then stay on the subscription a little longer, save up more money, and then buy the good stuff. What happens otherwise is that you're going to have a lot of products that are just okay, and you, you're going to end up buying the really good stuff anyway. So, uh, you might just skip that one step where you buy the slightly cheaper thing that you know may not have everything you need or where the sound isn't quite what you wanted it to be, or it's not as flexible as you would like it to be. And then you use that for a bit, and then you still end up saving up for the higher quality thing that has everything you want, right? So I would skip that step and just wait a little longer, be a bit more patient, and then just invest into the really high-quality thing.

And number two is, don't buy stuff just because it's on sale. That goes for everything in life. Don't just buy stuff if it's on sale. That's not a reason to buy something. You're just going to end up spending more because you're going to end up buying stuff that otherwise you wouldn't have bought, and then it's just sitting around on a hard drive, you're not actually using it. You know, it's, it's, it's usually not a good idea. Only buy it if you really need it, or it's been on your wish list for like a really long time, you've been wanting this for so long, and now it's on sale, and so now you buy it.

Another thing is, it's important to figure out what your quality criteria are because yours might be different from mine, right? I'm going to say a lot of things in this video that's going to upset a lot of people, but that's because I have certain criteria for how I like products to work. And so certain products are just going to work better for me because they just suit my preferences more in my workflow. That can be completely different for you. So it's up to you to figure out what's important to you. For example, in the interest of this video, I think it's probably important that I say the things that are important to me. I, for example, do not care about the interface of a product because for the most part, I'm not going to see it because I'm going to put it into Vienna Ensemble Pro on a different machine and I'll never look at it again. Like, I'll set it up once and I will never see it unless I have to go into it and fix something, which is rare. Once I've set it up, I usually, it's kind of a set it and forget it kind of situation. If it's the kind of library where I don't have to interact with the interface all the time, I don't really care how fancy it is, honestly. I don't need pretty pictures or animations or like, yeah, it looks cool, but also like, it's just using up resources for no reason. So I don't care for that.

Also, I have said this before, I don't care about fancy halls. Right? Just record in a professional space. That's all. Get a good quality recording. That's all I care about. For the most part, it's a marketing gimmick anyway, the whole, "Oh, we recorded in this fancy space." Um, okay, maybe you care, that's fine. I, I genuinely don't. I'm just going to assume it was a professional space with professional players, professional engineers, professional equipment. So that's, that's all I care about. The space it was recorded in tells me nothing about, uh, the quality of a library because you can get the best recordings ever and you can still mess up the whole thing in post-production. So it doesn't tell me anything. All it really tells me is it's probably going to be an expensive product because the room they recorded in was so expensive.

I also don't care about fancy brands or fancy composer names being attached to products. Again, usually that's a marketing gimmick to begin with. It often doesn't tell me that much about the product. Um, but also like, I just really genuinely don't care whether A-list composer XYZ was attached to that production in whatever nebulous way. Don't give a [ __ ]. I do care a lot, lot about proper post-production, meaning proper looping, tuning, proper clean editing, proper programming, scripting. Uh, cuz that really makes or breaks a product. No matter how good you've been in pre-production and production, if you mess it up in post-production, that's it.

Now, personally, I don't care about bloated products that have every articulation possible and like every mic position possible. Like, again, maybe you care about that, so you're going to make your choices based on that. If I see a library that has 3,000 articulations and 28 mic positions, I'm like, "Who the [ __ ] needs that?" Cuz now I also, I'm going to have to buy like a whole new SSD for a lot of money and like open my computer and install that and just so I can have that library. Is that worth it? Is that worth the effort? Or could you just have given me like a really nice full mix and then maybe like decca tree, outriggers, close mics, and like A/B overheads, maybe surround mics as well for those who want those? Like five would have been fine. Give me smaller options. Maybe some, uh, developers also charge extra when this did not cost them extra in production. Okay, the, the setup cost might have been slightly higher because they set up all these extra mic positions, but in the editing and post-production, you're editing all the samples simultaneously and you're processing them simultaneously. So whether you process like two mic positions or 10 mic positions at the same time, it's not really causing extra labor. Generally speaking, having made these products myself, that didn't cost you extra to do. Like unless you had to rent in extra equipment and spend so much extra time setting those up, and then it costs you extra server space. I don't know. Very often that does not justify the extra price for extra mic positions.

But also the whole articulations thing. I don't love products that have way too many articulations because A, it invites inconsistencies because you're dealing with a sample set that is just so huge that there's almost no way that there aren't going to be mistakes in there. But also, it's often such niche articulations. Again, I know you don't have to load them, it's just like they're sitting on your hard drive and just clogging up space, especially if it's articulations you would use like 0.1% of the time. And then you also have these articulations in 30 mic positions. I'm like, "Give me back my hard drive space, please." And then they're also just so difficult to set up, right? Cuz you can't have everything on one track because it's too inconsistent for that. If there's like 30 articulations, but then also there isn't really a proper way to set it up that makes sense in a way. Like it takes forever to set up every articulation if you want that. But then also there's just too many variations to not have like 20 key switches going on and and program changes. And even if you're trying to use expression maps, they're just then so cluttered that I don't know. There's just very often if there's so many different things going on in a library, they're just so impossible to set up because I'm not going to remember 20 key switches and what's behind them. And then you have to like use the little notepad and write everything down. And then you have to use like 10 different CCs to trigger all the different things. At that point, it becomes so unwieldy that I don't want to use it anymore. Or you really make split patches for everything, and then your template is going to be 5,000 tracks large.

For me, it has to be done in a sensible way, right? There can't be so much going on that I need to trigger five key switches at the same time and program changes and this and this and this in order to get that really weird niche articulation that I already forgot about five minutes after I set it up, you know? Um, like I will simply forget it's there because it's so difficult to access, it's so hard to program that that if you constantly have to go into the interface and remind yourself how things are set up and how things are working and what articulations you actually have available, if you constantly have to do that, you're just constantly getting away from writing music, you know? I want to set things up once and then have them be so intuitive that I can just write music instead of constantly being like, "Wait, how did this product work?"

Now, something else I care about is a good out-of-the-box sound. It doesn't have to be perfect. I have the skill and knowledge to mold it into what I need it to be. So if it's not perfect, it's not a deal breaker for me. But since I like to layer products, something that is important for me is that I can streamline the process. Flexibility in the setup, to me, is important. I need to be able to set everything up to work the same so I can easily copy paste and layer things. So that part is something that I do appreciate if they basically give you every option in the setup and are just like, "You can assign everything CCs, key switches, CC value switches, and all that stuff," so that everything can basically work the same across different developers.

Something I don't care so much about is what effects are available in a library because, um, I usually do my processing inside the DAW, so I don't much care. Based on my workflow, I also prefer multi-timbral players. Players that can do that are a big no-no for me. And what I don't generally like, or what I don't use much, is libraries with a lot of pre-recorded loops or phrases that I can't modify because I can't use those in a commercial product. I can't use a pre-recorded phrase and like use and sell that to a client. That's just, that's not how that's going to work. Like that's just going to be a huge copyright nightmare. And also, you know, you, you promise the client that you're writing. It's in your contract that you're writing original music. And pre-made loops that you can't alter and pre-made phrases are not that. And you're going to get into trouble if you use that and then someone else uses it on a commercial production and then there's a clash there because multiple people use the same loop, you know? I think even, even production libraries are now catching on to that and are like, "Hey, you're not allowed to use these products." So it's not quite as useful for a professional.

And then another thing I don't love very often is like baked-in orchestration where you have like strings plus woodwinds patch or something like that. Just because it's going to cause problems later on. CU on a lot of my productions, we do record, even if we don't record everything. So I need to be able to control the different elements. Um, also orchestrators must hate this, honestly, to have these combo patches and then they have to figure it out. I mean, they will, they're professionals, they're good at that. But, um, I don't know. I like to put in nuances into my music and keep the control over the orchestration. And if I have a patch that has baked-in orchestration, it has extremely limited usage on a commercial production, I think.

But so your criteria might be entirely different from mine. So it's important to sit down with yourself and figure out what's important to you. Now, that was a long introduction. Let's get to the companies and the products that I would go to. This is assuming you've already picked your poison in the DAW department. Doesn't matter really which one you pick, they can all do the job, they all have pros, they all have cons. Also doesn't matter if you're on Mac or PC. Again, both have pros and cons. Pick your poison.

Now, as far as players go, you want to get Kontakt and UVI. Both have free versions. Uh, but also Kontakt has a paid version, which I would invest in just because you're going to need it for so many sample libraries that it's just worth the investment.

Now, as far as strings go, you know my favorite and a lot of people's favorite is Cinematic Studio Strings. Has a very warm sound, very consistent, really good bread and butter thing. Not super demanding on the system, has all the articulations that you would use 90% of the time. It has like, I think three or five mic positions. Super easy to use. Like, it's a very straightforward library. It's not very bloated, it's very cleanly programmed, it has a nice script, nice sound. So it's just such a great all-rounder.

Now, another one that I do not have, but that a lot of my colleagues use and people on my team have used it and it sounded gorgeous every time. I've never heard this library sound like [ __ ]. Is Pacific Strings. The reason I don't have it is literally just I have so many string libraries. Um, I just, I just don't need it. The amount of times I've asked people like, "Oh, that's a nice sounding library. What are you using?" And they're like, "Pacific Strings," or "Pacific Strings layered with Cinematic Studio Strings." There's a video out here somewhere where someone did that. Absolutely gorgeous. If you have the budget for both, both layered together, gorgeous. If I was starting out right now, that's the one I would get next to Cinematic Studio Strings. Like those two would be my, my go-to, I think.

And then another string library that has become a mainstay in my template is Berlin Sordino Strings. It's such a gorgeous library. I use it even for passages that don't have to be sordino. It's just such a nice warm sound. And it's kind of the same thing, you know, good mic positions, it's not super bloated, it has all the bread and butter articulations, it's well-balanced, well-programmed, well-recorded. There's nothing wrong with it. I use it all the time. I use it in almost every single piece, sometimes stand-alone by itself, and sometimes just like to layer in to warm up the sound because it's also like a really nice large ensemble. Like it has a very big sound to it, so it can really like widen everything and just make it nice.

As far as brass goes, um, I love Cinematic Studio Brass. In general, Cinematic Studio Series, it's very good. That would be something I would invest in for sure. I, uh, love Cinematic Studio Brass specifically for the soloists. I like those a little bit more, I would say, than the ensemble patches. But really great sound, again, very easy to program, very nicely scripted, nicely recorded. No frills, no nonsense in that, just a really good bread and butter thing. If you're more into classical brass, classical sounding brass, Synchron Brass might be a thing for you.

Now for ensemble patches, you've seen in previous videos I've been using CineBrass. I don't know if I'd recommend buying that though. I'll get into that whole thing later. I'm basically slowly trying to phase out my C samples libraries just because they're no longer updating and making Kontakt libraries from what I understand. And so I'm basically seeing their whole Kontakt line as like discontinued now. So I'm slowly moving away from that. Now, what I love about CineBrass are the ensemble patches. And what I just installed is the Junkie XL Brass. If you need nice ensembles, the Junkie XL Brass is really, really good. It's probably going to replace C Brass for me. The Junk XL Brass is also really good if you need like really loud brass and really like huge ensembles. But overall, in lower velocities, it just has quite the nice warm sound to it. To me, as, as far as I've played through it so far, quite similar to CineBrass. So I have a feeling that's going to, uh, replace it for me slowly.

As far as woodwinds go, you know my love for Acoustic Samples. Every time I have a soloist, I'm using Acoustic Samples at this point. And I still use Berlin Woodwinds. It's still a great library. I have not tried out Cinematic Studio Series Woodwinds. I'm assuming they're great too. But yeah, I'm sticking with Berlin Woodwinds for like ensemble context and then with Acoustic Samples for solo context. Also, special shout out to the VSL Woodwinds. Their woodwinds have historically always been very, very good. So you can't go wrong with them either.

Now, as far as percussion goes, this is kind of the same thing as with the brass. I'm still using C I perk just because I have it, but I will slowly move away from it. The things that are very similar to C I perk that I would now purchase are the, um, Synchron Percussion. And I, by by that, I mean like a natural sounding percussion because that's what C I perk is as well. So natural orchestral percussion, uh, I would go with Synchron Percussion or with, uh, Berlin Percussion. They sound very similar, they have a similar array of instruments. So can't go wrong with either one of those.

Now, as far as big drum drums go, like big like trailer drums or like, you know, big action Q drums that, you know, drums that aren't supposed to sound like your traditional orchestral percussion. I would go with either LA Modern Percussion. One of my absolute favorites. So easy to use. Um, so well-recorded, well-programmed. Can't stress this enough. It's very, very worth it. Another one, uh, that I just installed, like a month ago, is Monolith. Now, the funny thing is, Monolith, very similar to LA Modern Percussion. As I was playing through Monolith, I was like, "This sounds so much like LA Modern Percussion." So I don't know what to make of that. Very similar instruments, very similar mapping and everything. But they're both fantastic. If you have one, I don't think you need the other necessarily, unless you're super into huge drums and you just want more. Go for it. But so if you have Monolith, you don't necessarily need LA Modern Percussion. If you have LA Modern Percussion, you don't necessarily need Monolith.

Another one I take a look at is Damage. I never quite took the Damage 2, but, um, the original Damage, I generally very much like because it has a very different sound from something like LA Modern Percussion or Monolith. And I feel like Damage has a lot of instruments in it that the other ones don't have, like a lot of, you know, metal and wood percussion and all kinds of stuff. So there's just a lot of kits that I like to use that I don't think I've ever really found anywhere else.

As far as harp goes, still haven't found a particularly great one that blends well with orchestra. I'm still using the East West harp from the East West Symphonic. So I don't know, man. Every other harp that I've tried so far, and I've tried many, every time I was like, "You know, it sounds nice by itself, but then the moment you use it with orchestra, it doesn't fit, it doesn't blend, and you have to do so much work to make that happen." And then I default back to the East West harp because for some reason, East West harp sits nicely in the mix. I just recently, like a colleague of mine was posting, um, a piece of his, and I, I dm'd him, I was like, "What harp is that? I'm still looking for a better harp." And he was like, "It's the East West Symphonic Harp." I was like, "Okay, clearly I like that one. I don't know. Clearly that's the one that I gravitate towards." So someone make a better harp library, okay? Please. One that actually blends with the orchestra.

As far as pianos go, I would recommend Keyscape or the VSL pianos. Now, Keyscape is by Spectrasonics, which generally is a company that, have they ever put out a bad product? I don't think so. Um, they don't put out much, but whatever they do put out is, it's always perfect. So I love using Keyscape for for different pianos and also piano sounds. Like it has some very interesting stuff in it as well, not just natural piano sounds. But if you want the more like, like less cinematic piano and more of a like natural classical piano, VSL, those pianos are just cutting edge. They're huge, so you're going to probably need a new hard drive. But for those, I would honestly say worth it. If you're looking for the best classical type pianos, VSL.

As far as guitars go, I gravitate towards Ilya Efimov. I hope I said that right. She's a very small developer doing all kinds of great stuff with like plucked instruments and a couple other stuff as well. But I specifically love his guitars and guitar adjacent instruments. And a lot of people, I personally have not tried it out yet, a lot of people highly recommend the Orange Tree Samples guitars. Every time I compliment a colleague or one of my team members on the guitar sound and I ask what it is, they usually say Orange Tree.

As far as basses go, and by that I mean, um, upright bass and electric bass, Trilian. Again, Spectrasonics. You get that one, you will never need a bass again in your life, I promise. It's just so comprehensive. It has so many different bass, uh, models in it, and it just sounds so fantastic.

As far as choir goes, I still would buy Olympus. Still love that library. I've tried a lot of other choir libraries at this point and still gravitate back towards Olympus. Still gravitating also towards Voxos. As far as Renaissance choir goes, a very similar choir is in Talin by Orchestral Tools. I love that one too. It's a really lovely choir. And then, um, Strata-Samples has a lot of good choirs. I specifically love their children's choirs and I love their ethnic choir.

Now, synthesizers. I think the first one that we all go for and that you should probably go for if you're starting out is Omnisphere. Not because it's a particularly great synthesizer, but because it's a great synthesizer collection. The amount of sounds you're getting with that is insane. I think it comes with like, what, 50,000 sounds? And it functions a lot like a synthesizer, of course, and you can drag audio into it as well and modify it there, like kind of like sampling, right? Like using an audio sample. And then so many people have also made packs for it, right? So there's so many expansions to it as well. So I think that's just generally a good starting point just to have like a great collection of synth sounds. You can modify all of them as well. Like it's, again, Spectrasonics. When they do something, they do it right. They, they do not half-ass things. But it's, it's a great, great starter tool. If you're starting out, that's like the, the first one I would invest in just to have that at your disposal. And then after that, I feel like it's a question of taste. A lot of people go to Zebra. I like Zebra a lot. Uh, a lot of people go to Serum, Pigments, Diva, Phase Plant. Native Instruments has a ton of great synthesizers. So then it kind of becomes a question of how do you like to use synthesizers, like what functions are important to you, and then picking the synthesizer that can do that specific thing.

Now, as far as full orchestra libraries go, my clear favorite is ProjectSAM. Another company that does not put out new products all the time, but what they put out, always fantastic. Have they ever released anything bad? I don't think they have. I don't think I've ever touched a product by ProjectSAM that where I was like, "Eh, no." All of them were fantastic. I do have some of the Spitfire Albion and stuff like that, and I still always gravitate towards ProjectSAM. I don't know why, but there's something about, uh, Symphobia, Lumina. Uh, I also have Swing and Swing More for the jazzier stuff. Pandora. I mean, it's so good. Somehow my go-to after all these years, still Symphobia, still ProjectSAM, every time.

Now, as far as hybrid stuff goes, your best go-to, I think, would be Heavyocity. They have so many great hybrid tools, it's insane. Like, Symphonic Destruction, Novo Strings. They also do make Damage. They have so many nicely processed things and so many kind of inspiring things. I would, if you're into the hybrid game, they're definitely the company I would check out. And in that vein, Output is also one that I would check out. Uh, I do have a bunch of Output products, but also they have a ton more stuff that I haven't even touched. And they, they also very much, I think, specialize in the whole like mixing electronics with acoustics and kind of kind of electroacoustic stuff, if that makes sense.

Now, as far as folk stuff goes, world stuff, again, Strata for me, takes a big win here with their Jade Orchestra and Jade Evolutions, and also with their Balkan series. I use those all the time. And I still also at times go back to East West Silk and Raw. They're a bit unwieldy, I feel like, but the sound of it is just fantastic.

Now, as far as textures go, a really great one is Slate + Ash. I, I love a lot of the stuff that they're making. That's the brand I would look at. I have Spectres and I have Landforms. They have a lot more stuff. Um, really cool things. Another one I love is, um, Orchestral Tools Time Macro. Time Micro. Really great for texture stuff. They also have a couple more, actually, that I'm going to get into. But I feel like Time Macro, Time Micro is like the best collection they have of that sort of thing. Use it all the time. And then Native Instruments has a lot of good stuff in that department as well. Fables, Lores, Thrill, Archis, Stray Light. There's a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting right now, but they have a lot of those particular, uh, instruments that are fantastic, especially to create atmospheres. And they usually have this XY pad so you can kind of morph sounds into one another. It's really cool to create soundscapes and like long textured stuff.

Now, as far as plugins go, if you're starting out, first things first, I would use the stock plugins that come with your DAW because they're very good. They're very good. You can get so far with that stuff. And it's good for learning because first you need to know what these plugins do and how and when you use them to then know what they're lacking. And then you can go and find what the, like in other plugins, what the stock plugins are lacking, right? But you first have to know what you're even looking for.

Now, personally, if I had no added reverbs, sa for the one that comes with Cubase, I would buy Liquid Sonics Seventh Heaven and Cinematic Rooms in particular. And I would go buy some Valhalla plugins. Valhalla being the cheaper option. I think they're all 50 bucks. Really great reverbs. But also you can get, um, Seventh Heaven and Cinematic Rooms as like, they have like a professional version and then they have like a lighter version, uh, which is generally cheaper. But then also if you get that on sale, you know, it goes down in price pretty nicely. Really great reverbs. Love them. Use them all the time.

As far as other processing goes, um, the first thing I would look at is either the iZotope Infrastructure or the FabFilter Infrastructure. And I would stick to one at first. I mean, later on, you can, you know, mix and match. The reason I say this is because if you're starting out and you don't have anything yet and you're inexperienced, it's nice to stay with a brand because they, they're going to have a lot of overlapping functions and layout, and they're going to name things the same way. And also the plugins will be able to interact with one another, like they all talk to each other. And it's kind of nice to have one infrastructure at first and then cross over into the other. It doesn't really matter which one you pick. I would, you know, just do some research and then pick the one that speaks to you more. But they're, they're both fantastic. Like nothing negative to say about iZotope or FabFilter. Highly professional products, super useful. Use them all the time.

And then of course, later on, you can get into like very specific plugins, you know, like specific EQs and whatnot, you know, like Gullfoss or Bloom, Spiff, Soothe. You know, all, all of those kinds of plugins. They're, they're not necessary at first. They're probably not ever necessary. But especially also because a lot of them overlap with what iZotope and FabFilter have to offer. So these are kind of like for later if you need like something really specialized and there's something that you're really missing. This is not something you need from the get-go. This is not something you need to immediately invest in.

And then there's also fun processing stuff. Again, you can get really far with what your DAW already has to offer. So don't stress about it unless you're really into sound design and you really do stuff like that. In that case, the probably the first thing we all gravitate towards is Soundtoys. So good. Not a single bad thing in there. So many things you can do with that. Also so many presets you can use. But every single thing in that is fantastic. I use it all the time. Very creative tool. But it's not really for like mixing or anything. It's, it's for like doing fun stuff with audio. So this would 100% be like the starter pack. And then there are others later that you can add. But with Soundtoys, the Soundtoys bundle, you're going to be like 99% covered.

Now, some people will point out that two companies have been very absent, which is Spitfire and C Samples. And listen, if you love these companies, go ahead and, you know, I'm not telling you not to use these products. I'm just anticipating some people in the comment section being like, "But what about?" First of all, I don't know every product. So there's already that. If there are companies I haven't mentioned, it might just be that I haven't tried their products or that I don't like their products. But since these two are going to come up in the comment section, I feel like I need to address it.

Now, with Spitfire, I never really connected with Spitfire. I used their products already 13 years ago when I was an assistant. It was, you know, on a lot of computers. So they have really early products, and I just never really connected with it. Now, for their, they must be having the worst player on the market. Like, what is that? What is that thing? Every time I have to load the Spitfire player, I just want to throw myself out the window. It's not appealing to me, okay? I don't like using their player, and that's already a big, big issue. The libraries that I have in my template are all Kontakt libraries, old Kontakt libraries of theirs. It's none of their Spitfire player stuff except for one, and I never use it. And I actually kicked it out of my template because the player was causing so much trouble. But my bigger issue is that I find their products to be overpriced for what they are, to be honest. Cuz they are pricey. The marketing is worth a million bucks, honestly. Like they're doing their job. They, they're worth every penny. Give them a raise. They're doing a great job. But the marketing is always kind of promising like the next best thing, the evolution, the, the best thing since we invented the wheel, you know? They like hyping up the products. And then you hear the product or you play around with the product and you're like, "Eh, it's just like an another product." And that's kind of a shame. Like most, so many of their products are kind of hit or miss. And it's always been like that for me personally. Maybe you disagree, that's fine. But for me personally, it's always been like some of the products I really liked over the years, and then other products I was always like, "This is kind of overhyped. Like this is not that good. This is very inconsistent. There's a lot of noises. The, the editing isn't good. The legatos are bumpy." You know, all kinds of, all kinds of issues with it. Or the sound just wasn't very good despite recording it at Air and Abbey Road in these, you know, in these great spaces. I just find that they're too pricey to be this hit or miss, personally. You know, if you're going to be that expensive, you better be spot on the money every single time. It's kind of weird. Like you have the best spaces, the best players, the best engineers, the best everything, and then the products are not better than stuff that was, you know, recorded in no-name spaces by no-name people that, you know, nobody has ever ever heard of. Products that cost half as much. I don't really want to recommend it because I'm like, "You can kind of get the same thing for half the price from a different developer." Plus, that different developer is going to update their products, which is also another thing that really bugs me about Spitfire. They don't update their [ __ ]. What's up with that? Like they, they put out product after prod, like they're flooding the market with library after library, and then they never fix their stuff. They just kind of move on to the next thing. And I'm like, for that, it's too expensive. If these products were really cheap or like would cost like half what they cost, I'd be like, "You know what? It's fine. It's fine." But they're really pricey. If people pay thousands of dollars for something, I feel like the least they can expect is for the bugs to be worked out and for like faulty samples and bad programming to be fixed and all that. And they just kind of don't do it, which I find a bit disrespectful to the customer. But I guess as long as the customers come back and just buy the next thing, they're just going to continue like that. This is not how I would treat my customers if, if I was making sample libraries. So I, I prefer developers that actually take the feedback and then improve the product instead of just moving on and being like, "Yeah, I guess you paid a fortune for that product that we will never ever fix." I don't think that's the way to treat your fellow artists, be they professionals or amateurs, hobbyists, whatever, doesn't matter. Anyway, it's not my business, so they can do whatever they want. It's fine. It's not checking enough boxes for me for my criteria. So if it does for you, go ahead and use the products. But these are kind of my thoughts and where I'm like, "Listen, I'm going to go with other companies there."

And then the other thing is C Samples. Because people obviously see a lot of C Samples in my template because I used to work for them, so I got all of the stuff for free, or some of the products I actually made or helped make. So I still have all of that stuff. But as I said earlier, I'm slowly phasing it out because it feels like C Samples is now Musio. And I'm not doing subscriptions. First of all, that's not, it's not what we're going to do. But more importantly, um, which is my bigger issue with this particular subscription, is that I don't have 100% faith that that company is going to survive forever. And hear me out. There are other companies that have their own player, right? Like VSL or Orchestral Tools or Spitfire. But those are much larger companies, okay? They have the cash flow to keep that stuff alive for a really long time. VSL in particular, I mean, they're one of the oldest ones. Same with East West. I mean, they're also one of the oldest ones to exist. There's a lot of cash flow there, especially also with VSL, I mean, they have the Synchron Stage, the whole recording service. Um, and then they have VSL Pro. So they already have experience in making software to begin with, which is a completely different thing than making content for like sample library content for someone else's player, like Kontakt, right? So if you're not a big company with a lot of extra cash, you should probably stick to making libraries for Kontakt or UVI. Um, because in that case, you don't have to maintain the player, right? It's, it's Native Instruments that have to make sure the player keeps existing and keeps being compatible and all that, right? That's not the job of a third-party company that is making content for that. Much like if you make patches for Omnisphere, it's not your job to maintain Omnisphere. If you make patches for Zebra, it's not your job to maintain Zebra, right? That's the job of the company that makes the software, which is what you want if you're a smaller company because that is a huge cost factor, okay? Keeping something compatible for long periods of time, it's a lot. And a company like Native Instruments, they can do that. They, they got the cash. It's fine. They've existed for a long time. They have the infrastructure, they have the workers, they, they got everything going. But likewise, a company like VSL has the infrastructure and money to keep that going. Much like Orchestral Tools. I mean, look how big they've grown over the past 10 years. They, they got it. I have faith that they're going to continue to exist and their player keeps continue to exist. Likewise, Spitfire. As much as I don't like the player, they have the overhead to create their own player and have it maintained because they're a big company. With smaller companies doing that, I just don't have faith that that's going to continue to be maintained because C Samples has always been a small company. So these are not like the kinds of operations that something like Orchestral Tools or VSL is running. And that's kind of worrisome to me. They haven't really come out with a, a hit product in a really long time. Like the latest orchestral offerings were not a hit, let's just put it that way. But yeah, I, I just don't have faith that Musio is going to exist 10 years from now, which is why I would rather save my money and then invest in a Kontakt library because I do have faith that Native Instruments is going to exist 10 years from now, or Orchestral Tools, VSL, even Spitfire. Again, if you love them, go use their stuff. It's fine. Like, it's just, it's not for me. But yeah, with Musio, I feel like if that company goes under, especially now that the whole Kontakt line is kind of abandoned, if, if that goes under, if that ship sinks, then is Musio still going to exist? Because if it doesn't, then it's going to become incompatible really fast. And if that happens, you can no longer use the samples that you paid for, even if you have a lifetime subscription. That would assume that Musio is going to exist for your lifetime, which again, I don't have that much faith in. Um, maybe I'll be proven wrong. But again, um, personally, I would rather then save that money for that lifetime subscription and invest in one of the companies where I do have faith they're going to exist 10 years from now, or 20 years from now. If you're old enough, you will remember that C Samples started around the same time, I think, as Spitfire and as, um, Orchestral Tools. Actually, Orchestral Tools was behind, they started a bit later. And now look into what Spitfire has grown into and Orchestral Tools. And C Samples has not grown at all. That's kind of another indicator that the growth just did not happen. The, the they could not really, um, establish themselves on the free market as the competition grew. Other companies were able to pull ahead and grow and become these, you know, massive mainstays. And C Samples was in direct competition with those companies and did not do that. So my faith is limited here. Maybe I'll be proven wrong. But for the safety of my investments, personally, I would go with something else.

Anyway, again, I'm not telling you what to use. I'm just telling you what I would buy, what I would invest in if I didn't already have a huge graveyard of sample libraries. Anyway, that's all I have. Nothing else to say other than go practice.